The carbonized scroll was read using a series of X-rays that were then stitched together using machine learning. [via IFLScience article]Image credit: Vesuvius Challenge
Posted on 07/02/2026 1:52:35 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
...To read it, we never unrolled it physically. Instead, we scanned it with high-resolution X-rays, reconstructed the wound sheet inside the volume, flattened it into a readable surface, and used machine learning to bring out the faint traces of ancient ink...
PHerc. 1667 is what survives of a larger roll: earlier attempts to open it by hand -- in the nineteenth century, and again in 1969 and the 1980s -- destroyed its outer layers and left only the compact inner core, about 8 cm of an original height of 19–24 cm. From that surviving portion we have now recovered and read the text in full -- the lower parts of some twenty-two columns, transcribed and reviewed by papyrologists. It is the first time the preserved text of a rolled Herculaneum scroll has been read continuously, end to end, rather than in isolated words or patches.
The recovered text is a philosophical treatise on ethics, and the evidence points to a Stoic work: it turns on human nature, impulse, and the moral progress of human beings, and its final preserved column names Aristocreon -- nephew and disciple of the great Stoic Chrysippus -- which, together with the language and themes of the text, places it in a Stoic context and dates it to the 2nd century BC.
Because the papyrus is damaged, the readings are fragmentary, with gaps where the surface is lost.
(Excerpt) Read more at scrollprize.org ...
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The carbonized scroll was read using a series of X-rays that were then stitched together using machine learning. [via IFLScience article]Image credit: Vesuvius Challenge
We commissioned a model of the Villa dei Papiri, made using LEGO® bricks, designed by Belle-Ve Bricks! You can find the build instructions here:Belle-Ve Bricks
Thanks for the link!
If only they hadn’t destroyed so many of these scrolls in the past trying to unroll them.
Gotta love the persistence though — “we found four words that time. Let’s bust up another one!”
2 interior courtyards and a peristyle! This family was quite rich.
CC
The Getty Museum in Pacific Palisades ( https://www.getty.edu/visit/villa/ ) is a sort of reproduction of the villa as it was understood at the time. However...
“Fresh attempts were made in the 1990s to explore the old excavations and these yielded an astonishing discovery. The villa was not merely built on one level, as had been previously thought, but was terraced down to the sea. It appeared that slaves had been trying to carry crates of books to safety when they were overwhelmed by the eruption.”
https://freerepublic.com/focus/chat/6a58990/posts
So, was it the butler who did it? /s
Pfft! That ugly villa? They needed the Light Bringer’s architect to build a villa of real beauty.
Sometimes I’m more fascinated by the technologies we use to study such relics than I am of the relics themselves.
I'm 50/50 on it, but it would be nice if this one-of-a-kind collection of ancient books had more variety. Even some recipes would be nice. 😁
🙂😊😁😀😃😆😅😂🤣
Reading a book without opening it. That has been a goal of mine since high school.
But seriously….this is very interesting.
When I was a kid in skool, I discovered a book in my parents' library. It was a good 3 inches thick, and it was nothing but detailed plot synopses of hundreds of important novels. It was very useful when it came time to do book reports. It didn't quite replace actually reading the book, but it helped immensely.
Now all you have to do is submit a request to AI, and print out the response.
You work with what tools are available.
Heh... yeah, learning by osmosis. Or like Edgar Cayce.
Gaius Corpulus to Flatulus Maximus:
Greetings to you and to all in your household. To your wife and children I send my best wishes for health and prosperity. And I do beseech you to remind that mischievous Celtic slave girl to keep our little secret. I am confident you will not endeavor to enquire of her as to its nature.
My thoughts often turn to home and the superb wine pressed from the vineyards on the slopes of Vesuvius. And it is on the subject of Vesuvius that is the occasion for this epistle.
My travels in the East have introduced me to certain men of knowledge, and who claim that the superb soil of a region is sometimes associated with the past wrath of Vulcan displayed in a fury of fire, smoke and terrible destruction. They further informed that such incidents follow not long on the heels of great shaking of the ground as Vulcan himself hammers his forge closer and closer to those to whom he would bring harm.
You no doubt remember clearly the great shaking that destroyed much of Pompeii just two years before I was called to my first tour of duty in Cappadocia. And so I write to urge that you and your family relocate to Rome or Capua without delay.
Whatever you do — don’t just roll up this letter and stick it on the shelf.
https://freerepublic.com/focus/chat/3783661/posts?page=59#59
Be sure to drink your ovaltine?
A CRUMMY COMMERCIAL!
“Reading a book without opening it. That has been a goal of mine since high school.”
LOL...
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